Into the Night
by Gree
Summary: The Night Lords Chaos Space Marines assault an Imperial World under the protection of the Sisters of Battle.


Disclaimer: I do not own Warhammer 40,00 or any trademarks. Everything belongs to Game Workshop.

Having said that this is my first Night Lords story so forgive me if it is a little unpolished.

* * *

INTO THE NIGHT

The Dema system was a faithful system to the Imperium, claimed in fiefdom by the Ecclesiarchy as a result of Actorian Crusades that had rediscovered the system when the Crusade waged war against the ork empires of the stars. The system was located close to the Eye of Terror, it's site as an Adeptus Sororitas facility meant that the system was used to transport and supply Sororitas troops on their way to the Cadian Gate.

As such it was a vital system, many of the Imperium's reinforcements had been routed through the system, near a calm warp-storm, as it was to support the embattled forces of the Imperium against Abbadon's 13th Black Crusade. Cruising above the Orbit of Dema IX the Night Lords Battle Barge _Nightwraith_ exchanged fire with an orbital defense battery encircling the planet, lance fire and missiles flew between each.

But the defense fort would not stand long against the guns of the _Nightwraith_, a pre-heresy ship that had served with the Night Lords during the Horus Heresy and was more ancient and powerful hen any other ship in it's class. There was a dozen other smaller ships in the fleet to escort the mighty battle barge; they too added their volleys into the rapidly collapsing form of the star fort as it started to break into pieces.

With a magnificent orange explosion the fort came apart in a shower of debris. Then the ships of the Nights Lords turned around and engaged the cluster of Imperial Navy cruisers and destroyers. Underneath the _Nightwraith _hung Dema IX, an Ecclesiarchy planet that was used as a covenant for the Adeptus Sororitas and for the training of new recruits, it population was faithful.

Since it's rediscovery by the Imperium, four millennia ago it has been claimed by the Ecclesiarchy and transformed into a vassal planet that inspired pilgrimages from across the Galaxy. The Imperial Guard regiments raised in the system where fanatical to the extreme and the Inquisition also maintained a small Fortress to oversee the purity and activities on Dema IX. Outside a massive space dock was filled with travelers to the world.

They where currently being slaughtered by a group of Night Lords cruisers that bombarded the hapless transport vessels in orbit and blew them to smithereens with the big guns of the Night Lords fleet. The small group of Imperial Navy vessels where similarly being decimated, most of the Imperial Fleet had been caught unawares in fleet maneuvers near the system by the large Night Lords fleet.

Outnumbered and caught off guard they where slaughtered easily by the ships of the VIII legion. The Night Lords had then rerouted their assault fleet to attack at the capital world of the Dema system. Then they had broadcasted wails and screams over the planetary vox-systems. Picts of mutilated and flayed Imperial naval men filled the airwaves as the Ecclesiarchy struggled to close down the transmissions.

There was panic and chaos everywhere and the planet as the Sororitas was called out to quell the riots. The Battle Sisters and mobs of the faithful drove back the unbelievers into their homes and slew them with flamers and boltguns.

However that was when the Night Lords chose to launch their assault.

On the bellies of the VIII legion ships there where dozens of dreadclaw assault craft, Thunderhawks and Stormbirds. The drop pods blinked and they engaged from the ships before blasting off from their destinations. They flew past the destroyed orbital defenses and became crimson comets in the entry to the planet. A fleet of dark blue Thunderhawks and Stormbirds followed them into the atmosphere of Dema IX.

To those on the ground the Night Lords drop ships must have appeared as fiery meteors blazing through the sky in red trails of heat. They had no idea on what hell was about to be unleashed on them.

* * *

With a set of savage howls the Night Lords emerged from the dreadclaws mere seconds after they had set into the ground. From each night-dark drop pod emerged a squad of Night Lords Astartes. Bolter fire immediately broke out as chainswords revved and the screams of the dying filled the night. The Sisters and their allies where capable warriors but they where caught of guard by the sudden strike.

The Night Lords where like a hammer smashing aside the unorganized Sisters. The Sororitas had overextended themselves in killing their own people, Thus they where easily crushed. Lord Maskar led the charge of his personal raptor bodyguard into the heart of the Sororitas resistance. His Lightning Claws where stained red from the gore of countless sisters slain.

Captain Kathrion's power sword tore into Sororitas and lopped of limbs as he waded into the carnage at the head of his chosen. Squads of terminators teleported down from the _Nightwraith_, ripping apart sisters with power claws and chainaxes, bolter fire bouncing off their monstrously thick plates. In the midst of the firestorm the rest of the Night Lords drop ships cam down and vehicles and heavy weapons troops came, adding their weight of fire into the melee as sorcerers released captive daemons from their prisons and let the warp-beasts feast upon the souls of the Sororitas.

Raptor squads moved in the dark, Striking in one place and wiping out a squad and then disappearing into the darkness, waiting for the Sororitas to discover the butchered bodies of their battle sisters. The Night Lords struck like lightning and skinned and beheaded the corpses of the Sororitas in a grotesque art that was fine as any jeweler. For the Night Lords fear was their finest killing tool.

Lord Maskar finally reached Canoness Mirla and tore her heart out with his crackling lightning claws. Lifting the bloody organ up above his head, he crushed it with a hideous shriek in front of hundreds of Sororitas and Night Lords. That enflamed the Sisters into frenzy at the martyrdom of their beloved leader. But that pleased the Astartes of the VIII legion as they gleefully butchered the Sororitas with all their fury.

At the end of the first day the Sororitas had been broken and splintered into individual units and scattered through the city's streets. The traitor marines had moved out quickly and began the hunt of the surviving sisters.

The hunt lasted for five days.

* * *

Sister-Palatine Clair muttered a prayer as she retuned fire into the stygian darkness of the night. She could barely see into the deep darkness. The invaders had been Astartes, Traitor Astartes. They had also chosen their invasion time well, attacking in the middle of the night on a moonless night, thus ensuring it was total darkness. It was incredibly hard to fight in such conditions.

She had fought the servants of the Dark Gods before, but had never engaged a Traitor Marine this way. She had been part of the force that had slain the Death Guard lord Poxius and banished the Word Bearer Daemon Prince Slcapltius back to the warp. But never had she encountered a situation like this. The marines moved as if it where daytime and had her four battle sister squads pinned down in a collection of blockhouses in the Merchant Quarter.

The Sisters had been exhausted when the invasion came from the bloody riots. They had been broken and scattered by swift precise strikes of brutal force and the Traitor Astartes had butchered most of the faithful militia-mobs. Then the Traitor marines had swept into the Sororitas like a bloodstained hurricane and broke them, scattering them into the city while the main garrison retreated into the Fortress-Monastery of the Sororitas.

Clair herself had four battle squads, two Retribution squads armed with heavy bolters and a squad of blessed Seraphim and her own guard of Celestians that hunkered down in the ruins of a hab. Their armor was cratered with bolter marks and gouged with chainsword teeth from long days of fighting. Many sported minor wounds wrapped in purity seals to stop the bleeding.

Ruined devotional papers covered the walls as Sisters with storm bolters and flamers had covered the approaches. The Retribution squads had taken refuge in the highest streets in order to lay down large hail of bolter rounds. She could not see the Traitor Astartes, but she could hear the rumble of Rhino engines, but not of feet, particular she thought, the forces of chaos where usually very loud and intimidating.

Then four crimson beams launched into the hab block she and her sisters where inhabiting and then there was dust and explosions everywhere she was knocked down on to her back as she struggled to get up.

* * *

Squad Niar, a veteran squad led by Sergeant Niar Lukas, a veteran marine from Nostramo, led the initial assault. They where a band of skilled veterans, the chosen of Lord Maskar. Niar himself was armed with a pair of lightning claws as well as two of his subordinates. A pair of marines cradled a bat-mouthed flamer in their large blue-armored hands. Niar unsheathed his claws, watching when crackled with electricity as he activated the power.

As elite chosen veterans his squad could afford many rare weapons from millennia of fighting the Long war. Under the cover of darkness and their havoc fire support these men had advanced to the Sororitas positions to attack through the breach.

Their armor was the color of midnight trimmed in gilded bronze, each shoulder pad bore the bat-winged skull icon of the VIII Legion and they wore bat-winged helmets that swept back and made them look like demonic predators.

For Niar and his men who where part of the 12th Grand Company, tearing down Dema IX was pleasurable in itself, they took extreme pleasure in slaughtering the fat and arrogant Ecclesiarchs who counted their taxes and preached false sermons. Lord Maskar, Chosen of the Night Haunter from the days of the Horus Heresy, had given Captain Kathrion and his men the honor of assaulting the planet first before the rest of the drop pods came in.

One hundred and forty Astartes of the 1st Sub-Company under Captain Jael Kathrion had launched their attack; warriors clad in dark blue power armor with sleek crimson bat winged crests pillaged the city. Many of the Imperial cattle screamed their prayers as they died under the Night Lords guns. As like the rest of his men Niar had found the faith and religion of the Imperials ridiculous.

When they had come to Dema IX they had struck immediately against the Sororitas who where beating back the mobs of panicked citizens, they had scattered the Imperial forces with precise terrifying strikes in accordance with the Night Haunter's doctrine. Now they where here cleaning up the trash. As he and his squad infiltrated there where three more assault squads behind him, all with Rhinos, a Raptor squad, two havoc squads, and an auto-cannon armed predator.

Niar launched himself in a run through the breach, turning his armor's speaker systems to the max he screamed out the battlecry of the Night Lords. ''WE HAVE COME FOR YOU!'' he boomed as he disemboweled the first sister rising to her feet. He then flung himself to the side as the marines with flamers opened fire, roasting Sororitas alive in the cramped confines of the hab, when the flames sputtered and died out bolter fire answered.

However Niar and his squad had readied their lightning claws and drew chainswords and had charged into the Sororitas, Niar, sliced one in half, beheaded another and eviscerated a third Battle Sister. There was screams of pain and blood as the Night Lords charged in home, one Night Lord was dead from bolter rounds, another from a lucky chainsword strike. But the Astartes where famed for their assault prowess and in these close confines the Sisters stood no chance.

Screaming at the top of his gene-enhanced lungs Niar blocked a strike from a chainsword and sliced a battle sister in half, as the chainsword sisters swung again he ducked and rammed his right claw through her chest, his powered talons cutting through the power armor like butter. Then a Sister in ornate battle armor appeared in front of him. She wore the rank decorations of a Palatine and swung a power saber at him. It dug into his shoulder, drawing blood that was instantly clotted from his gene-enhanced physique.

Another strike tore through his chestplate as he swung his talons at her head, which she avoided deftly. She then launched in another set of strikes with the power sword and Niar blocked a strike with his claws that would have taken his head off. He then kicked her in the chest; she spat a huge amount of blood as her ribcage was crushed by his kick. He then took advantage of her lowered guard and his right lightning claw tore through her skull.

His fist was covered with gray matter and crimson gore, some of it burning on the power field of the claws. He flicked excess matter away and charged once again into the bloody close combat. The treads of a pair of midnight-skinned Rhinos broke through the rubble and stopped with a hideous shrieking noise. The Rhinos doors opened and two squads of Night Lords Astartes exited.

''WE HAVE COME FOR YOU!'' was the general shout as the Night Lords bellowed out their warcry from their maxed-out vox-systems, a screaming wailing sounded from the Rhino's vox-speakers. With above the Seraphim jump packs flared and they moved into the combat, only to be met by a volley of heavy bolters and lascannon rounds into them. Three where pulped by heavy bolters, their armor finally unable to take the force of repeated bolt shells.

Lascannon rounds took out two more and even as then landed amongst the ruins another squad of Night Lords emerged from the rubble and opened fire with their bolters at full auto at point blank range. Even the power armor of the Sororitas could not hold out against the sheer weight of bolter fire into them and they fell as the mass-reactive rounds tore into their armor and pulped them like rotten fruit. The survivors where cut down by Kathrion's own power sword.

Moving stealthily a squad of Night Lords raptors moved quickly and expertly in the broken spars and burned out habs. They where completely avoided the heavy bolters of the Retributors. Then with a howling scream the Night Lords's jump packs ignited and they blasted off into the night like terrible daemons. Heavy bolter shells met them in mid-flight and felled two, the large rounds cracking their power armor.

But when the Raptors landed their flamers and bolt shells tore into the Retributor squads and the Sergeant's Lightning Claws tore a Battle Sister from gullet to groin in a shower of gore. Flames burned deep into the night as insane screams sounded as the Adeptus Sororitas where butchered in the streets and habs.

* * *

There would be no morning for Dema IX, in the aftermath of the battle Lord Maskar had launched nuclear charges into remote areas of the planet, setting of enormous clouds of dust that blocked off the sun. To the embattled people of Dema IX the lack of light meant that their invaders enjoyed another advantage and that they where now terrified by the new broadcasts that where behind forcibly aired.

In the initial assault Captain Kathrion's assault company had seized the comms tower for the main city and from there the Night Lord's techmarines had hacked into he communications network and had broadcasted messages of fear and terror into the populace. Images of Sororitas being tortured to death where shown. Viewers watched in terror as their saviors, the shining angels of humanity, where stripped naked of their armor and faith and flayed and mutilated alive.

Their screams where played in a repeated loop over the airwaves for hours as viewers watched with paranoia and dread. Mass suicide rates soared as whole groups of people committed suicide rather then face these monsters. However the main covenant of the Sororitas still held out stubbornly. Having been cut off from the Imperium the Canoness and a small group of Inquisitors still held on to hope of rescue and relief by the Imperium.

They conspired to seize the comms tower and launch a message to the rest of the Imperium. That was they would be reinforced with more Sororitas and Loyalist Astartes against the traitors. However when dawn refused to break they became panicked and worried, scouting patrols sent out to reconnoiter the Night Lords where bloodily repulsed and the few picts that came back along with horrified survivors tales shoed the awful truth.

Night Lords Rhinos had been covered with flayed skins of the Sororitas and on each spike of the rhinos an Imperial head was stuck. The armor of the VIII legion dangled with severed heads and captured wargear.

* * *

''I am Nalen Maskar, know my name and fear it young ones, for you will all die here. I will not spare any of you, you corrupt Imperial dogs, Ecclesiarchy in particular should fear my wrath.'' ''The faith is weak, you are weak then. We are not mad daemon worshippers but true adherents of the Haunter's doctrine. With fear and darkness we will triumph and laugh over your bodies''

''I challenge you to pray for to your Emperor while we rip your hearts out and flay the skin from your bodies. We will make you scream. We are the Bringers of Darkness, the Sons of the Haunter'' ''We have survived the betrayal of your False Emperor, the dogs have been set lose of you and you will all perish under our blades. Know this for we are the 12th Grand Company of the Night Lords, the VIII First Founding legion. We have come for you!''

-Lord Nalen Maskar of the 12th Grand Company, Night Lords Legion, to the people of the Dema system.

* * *

Canoness Mira prayed in the bright hallways of the Imperial chapel at Imperia Primeria, the Inquisitorial fortress that he last of the Imperial forces had taken refuge too in an attempt to escape the Night Lords. A massive golden statue of the God-Emperor in the center dominated the chapel. Censers sprayed smoke everywhere in the temple as priests dreaded out oratories to the God-Emperor.

She had been contemplating recently. Her faith was strong and she had suffered no despair. But the recent brutal slaughter of her sisters and the callous defilement of their bodies had produced not righteous anger but loathsome fear. All around her she felt that the noose was being tightened over her neck. There was a kind of twisted creeping sensation that crawled up her spine as she thought of the Imperial position.

Quickly as any righteous battle sister would she banished these thoughts from her mind quickly steeling herself she launched a litany of prayers she had learned since she was an initiate. ''To Him on Terra, protect your fateful with thy golden blade and cast thy foes into internal purgatory.'' She recited a common battle prayer of the Sororitas that she had learned long ago,

All around her serf-girls with shaved heads and habits hurried to their tasks of maintaining the keep's temple. Then all of a sudden she felt a kind of odd chilling sensation in her stomach. She knew the sensation all too well. She had known it on Space Hulks while fighting alongside the loyalist astartes and confronting daemons. It was the sensation of the warp. Sickly sweet and putrid at the same time.

Whirling around she barley had enough time to blink and a something tore through her chest in a welter of red gore. The Night Lords terminator shook her off his claw as he opened fire with his combi-bolter. A squad of midnight-skinned terminators had teleported into the chapel. A volley of disciplined bolter shells tore into the serf-girls and reduced them to crimson sacks of meat on the floor.

Outside in the hallways the attack on the Inquisition's keep continued as the Night Lords flooded the corridors like a blue-black tide and launched into a frenzy of death and slaughter among the thousands of Imperial servants.

* * *

There was a constant wave of bolt rounds shooting into the corridors. Killing random imperial scribes and Sororitas alike in a hailstorm of mass-reactive bolts that tore the hallways to shreds. Dark blue armored astartes ran through the hallways, helmet crests shining darkly in the sputtering light-strips that decorated the ceilings of the inquisitorial fortress. Firing from the hip they drove back the Sororitas.

In the courtyard dozens of raptors descended from the sky, Lord Maskar himself leading them as a massive screaming wail sounded form them, pulverizing eardrums and shattering stain-glass windows. Then they descended on the huddled masses of Inquisitorial staff. Chainswords raising up and down and bolt pistols firing and reaping a bloody tally amongst the mass of scribes below.

Blood flowed in the sewer cracks as limbs where removed and the screaming continued, this time from the victims as well as they where brutally butchered like livestock in the terraced courtyards. Stepping out of the bloody chapel a squad of Night Lords terminators blasted through way into the inner sanctum, Las-rounds pattered of their armor like raindrops and a hail of bolts tore Inquisitorial stormtroopers apart.

The failing light of the Inquisitorial fortress's ceiling lights shone weakly off the crimson crested helms and blue-black armor of the chaos marines who laughed and shrieked as they butchered their way through the halls. Entire cloisters of pilgrims and Guardsmen were slain in volleys, their corpses packing the tight halls so thickly that the Night Lords had to cut their way through with chainswords.

Inquisitor Lord Laercus, clad in his resplendent gold armor died alone and in terror, locked within his chambers. The Night Lords had seemingly ignored him, preferring to slaughter his servants. Stuck almost incoherent in terror by the screams of his followers and the sisters, his paroxysms of fear wracked his form ever strong and he reached for his laspistol and placed it to his mouth.

* * *

The smoke poured from the shattered, bloody wreck of the inquisitorial fortress. The flames of the ruins only illuminated it, as the world was now shrouded in eternal night. The forms of the Sisters of Battle were impaled on great steel spikes, rammed in the earth, some were stuck through the chest or back, and others through the anus or genitalia till the spikes pierced their heads.

And the worst part of it was that some of them were alive.

The communications systems of the fortress were repaired by the heretical tech-priests in the Night Lords service. The network, which was once used to convoy Inquisitorial orders was now use to show the scene of horror. Heaps of broken corpses were arranged in mind-twisting and frightening patterns on the street, guardsmen were choked in their own entrails and dismembered cross the buildings and streets.

Across the sector, whole populations stood horrified as the Ordo Hereticus hurried ordered their staffs to cut of all transmission from Dema IX before the vulnerable population could assimilate such horrors. It was too late. At the sight of the dead corpses of the Imperium's finest butchered like a macabre child's doll was too much. Millions felt the cold icy grip of terror size their hearts.

Across the sector suicide rates skyrocketed as governors gibbered in terror inside their palaces at the thought of the Night Lords visiting terror and death upon them and their families. Cults preaching that the end of days had arrived formed up quickly, they went ransack n the streets, the vengeful Sisters quickly crushed these cults, eager to atone for their sisters failure at Dema IX.

The Night Lords cared not, they had fulfilled the terms of their pact with the Ruinous Powers. Many deaths had pleased Khorne, the defiling of the Sisters had served Slaanesh, the filth heaped upon the Imperial alters and the despair that engulfed the system overjoyed Nurgle, and bloody change had been brought to the system at the behest of Tzeentch. Lord Maskar and the rest of the Night Lords cared little for the joy of the Chaos Gods, but rather for the pacts of temporal power and warding that had been given to them in exchange.

That and the chance to crush those who had dared worship the corpse god, the False Emperor who in his hypocrisy had betrayed the Night Lords and the Haunter. It was so pleasing to avenge the Father of Fear. Now the Night Lords fought not to preserve the weak tottering realm of the Emperor, but for vengeance, the Imperium was beyond saving, it was better to crush the weak so that a new order would be built to face the multifarious horrors of the galaxy.

And whether it was not ruled by the Dark Gods of Chaos mattered little to Maskar, he despised faith but recognized them as powerful forces to help achieve the one thing that truly mattered to him.

Vengeance.


End file.
